Haith really should be fired. He won't, and the question won't even be contemplated, let alone broached, but if you watch the games, you know.

Yep !

When a team has a shit load of talent and has played like they have in the last 2 yrs and especially this last year with this Dr. Jekyl Mr.Hyde routine(severe inconsistency) which was the only thing that was consistent for Mizzou all year THEN you KNOW you have a coaching problem. Haith is a PRETENDER and needs to go PERIOD. Players are NOT MOTIVATED under this guy !!

IMO, there should be a #FireAlden campaign going on. @SaveMizzou or some shit.

That guy is a detriment to your organization. And it's obvious. Mizzou lost how many million by going to the SEC with the Big 12 exit fees? That's a loss of several million. I don't know all of the numbers. But if you want to be successful in the SEC, you need to get a kick ass AD candidate.

When Mike Alden passes away, he should be cremated with logs from flaming AIDS trees.

Clark, Clarkson, JWIII, Jones, Post, Ross, Criswell, Mossberg, NWC, Jankovic, and Black Hole Brown all figure to be the most likely to be a part of an eight man rotation. I'm not even sure how I'd set it up.

Do you want a true Frosh as your primary ballhandler? NWC can't do it. I guess Clarkson has some handle. Is Post ready to play center in DI?

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Missouri's gone from the NCAA Tournament, and I'm thrilled. So are you, whoever you are, even if you're a Missouri fan. I saw lots of you on Twitter during the Tigers' 84-72 loss Thursday night to Colorado State, and you couldn't wait for this game to be finished. You couldn't wait for this season to be finished.

You probably can't wait for the Frank Haith coaching era to be finished, too, but for that one you'll have to wait. Sorry. Can't help you there. Haith has won too many games at Missouri to be fired, unless the NCAA's investigation into his old program at Miami bears poisonous fruit.

Which it might, but we'll just have to see.

What we saw Thursday was bad enough. It looked an awful lot like what we saw last year in Missouri's NCAA opener against 15th-seeded Norfolk State, a game the Tigers couldn't lose until, of course, they did. Because a postseason game in college basketball isn't like the other games, when talent -- and the home court -- means so much. In March, on neutral courts against teams playing for their very life, grit and toughness and coaching matter, and Missouri doesn't have enough of it. Didn't last season. Didn't Thursday night.

Colorado State beat Missouri by 12, and Colorado State didn't look all that good doing it. The Rams committed 14 turnovers against a team that didn't try to turn them over. Missouri doesn't play defense so much as it plays possum, laying there on the floor until it can get the ball back and go do what it likes to do, which is shoot.

Missouri didn't shoot well Thursday, but that wasn't as much a function of the Colorado State defense as it was a function of Missouri's ineffectiveness. Several times Tigers point guard Phil Pressey dribbled at the top of the key, behind the 3-point arc, and then stopped and waited for a teammate to curl open. That didn't happen, so he waited some more, I guess for a defender to get in front of him. Seeing neither, he finally chucked the open 3-pointer. This happened repeatedly. It's why he scored 20 points.

Missouri had four dunks and seven layups and frequently turned Colorado State's made baskets into easy buckets at the other end. The Rams' defense was so porous that CSU coach Larry Eustachy flipped after one particularly bad sequence, calling timeout and stomping on the floor and cursing out his team so loudly I could hear it across the court, over the buzz of the crowd.

At least Eustachy was angry about it. Missouri's defense was even more listless, and Haith just watched it. Allowed it. Maybe he couldn't see what was happening.

This team was brutal to watch, just like it was a year ago, and not even a small part of me wonders if this column will be called "trolling." To troll, you see, the intent is to tick off a fan base. And there is no intent to tick off anyone here. Hell, there is no ability to tick off the Missouri fan base, because the Missouri fan base agrees with me. You've seen this team all year. You know it better than I do. You probably wanted to be rid of this team, this faulty image, even more than I did.

And I wanted Missouri to be gone. Midway through the first half it occurred to me: They don't care. They don't give a damn. Missouri wants to make like Oklahoma football used to do under Barry Switzer and just out-athlete Colorado State. Missouri didn't want to outwork or outthink anyone. Missouri just wanted to out-athlete the Rams -- and they did.

Missouri was significantly more athletic than Colorado State. Hell, Missouri aced the eyeball test. The Tigers were bigger, looked stronger, looked like what a basketball team should look like with all those fifth-year seniors and fourth-year juniors and even third-year sophomores. More than half the Missouri rotation started its college experience somewhere else, Haith replacing last season's missing pieces by gathering misfit toys from places like UConn (Alex Oriakhi) and Pepperdine (Keion Bell) and Oregon (Jabari Brown) and Auburn (Earnest Ross).

Those guys looked terrific, until they had to play defense. And then they looked disinterested. The crowd was on them, too -- not Colorado State fans, but fans of other schools, teams that had played earlier in the day like Louisville and Marquette. Their fans were just blasting Missouri for its defensive indifference, and I'll be honest: I sat there and smiled, because those fans were saying what I was thinking, when what I was thinking was this:

Missouri doesn't give a damn.

Colorado State? The Rams gave more of a damn. They weren't the hardest-working team I've ever seen, but compared to Missouri they were tireless. They were workaholics. They have some guys that look good on the court, like Minnesota transfer Colton Iverson and senior Greg Smith, but they beat Missouri thanks to guys like Dorian Green and Wes Eikmeier and Jonathan Octeus -- guys who don't look all that special anywhere but in the stat box, where they combined for 49 points on just 28 shots.

Colorado State outrebounded Missouri 42-19. That's embarrassing. Missouri committed just five turnovers, "forced" 14 turnovers and used that advantage to attempt six more shots than its opponent -- and was blown out anyway. That's humiliating, or should be.

Haith didn't see it that way. He said afterward, "I'm very proud of what this team accomplished." He said a lot more stuff, but after that comment I was done listening. Proud of this team? Tell it to someone who cares, Frank. Tell it to someone who'll believe you.

Don't tell it to your fans, though. Pretty sure they're not on that list

Adios, Phil Pressey. I really won't miss you, even though you were the most talented point guard I've seen play at Missouri since Keyon Dooling was in Columbia.

Adios, Laurence Bowers. I wish my last memories of you weren't of you randomly throwing the ball to the other team in a key moment and of you getting worked on the glass by a 6-4 white guy named Pierce.

Adios, Alex Oriakhi. You're awesome, and I wish your year in Columbia had seen a better close.

Adios, Keion Bell. I'm not sure why, but Frank Haith seemed to like you the least of all his players. You gave Missouri some nice flashes, though. And some impressive highlights at least.

Clark, Clarkson, JWIII, Jones, Post, Ross, Criswell, Mossberg, NWC, Jankovic, and Black Hole Brown all figure to be the most likely to be a part of an eight man rotation. I'm not even sure how I'd set it up.

Do you want a true Frosh as your primary ballhandler? NWC can't do it. I guess Clarkson has some handle. Is Post ready to play center in DI?

It will be interesting. Clarkson will run the point (which he did at Tulsa). He's an NBA-level athlete and a much better scorer from the point than Pressey (supposedly). If those things are true, he might even fit this offensive approach better than Pressey, because it seems to funnel a lot of shots to the point.

Clark will come off the bench and they'll need 15-20 minutes a game from him, in all likelihood. He has played at a high level and seems to be one of those tough/winning point guards who gets more out of his talent than you'd expect (so the opposite of Pressey).

I think we've seen the last minutes NWC plays at the point. I was unsure he'd ever bounce back in about a month ago, but I guess he can be an OK role player (played better as the season closed, I thought).

They're going to be much thinner inside. Criswell is an OK role player, and he was better than that before he broke his hand against Illinois. He also seems willing to work and play hard.

Inside game is a concern, though. Hard to play 4 guards when you only really have 5. Going to need 2 of Post/Jankovic/Jones/JW3 to play major minutes next year.

Defense must be better, though. That will be the real test for Haith. He has shown he can recruit, and the offensive systems have been fine (highly efficient in both years).

I will give a SMALL amount of leeway to this year's team on defense because of the complete roster turnover, but very little.

Better rotations, better communication, and more consistent effort are things that MUST be evident next year. Big test for Frank Haith.

I, too Tivo'ed this game. I only watched about 45 seconds. I turn it on, Missouri fumbles the ball out of bounds to CSU. CSU then drives down court, hits a layup on a cut screen. Then Mizzou throws the ball down low to Bowers who is wide open under the bucket. Instead of flushing the ball, he puts up a lazy shot which is rejected from behind by a hustling CSU player. At that point they were down by six. I turned it off.

I said it last year.
I'll say it again.

Choking
Losing
Gutless
Pussy
Bastards.

This team has been unwatchable outside Columbia. I literally HATE this team. They never belonged in the tournament. Alabama or Tennessee should have gone instead.

Frank Haith is on thin ice. He better learn how to win on the road, or he is toast.

I still believe Pressey and Bowers will be investigated for point shaving.

Spring Break starts at Mizzou after today. I just had this feeling that the players would mail it in, like they did. They knew even if they won, they'd get embarrassed by Louisville, and why hang around and get your ass kicked when you can be home smoking dope with your peeps?